


Apology

by Lobster



Series: A Year of Haymitch and Effie Drabbles [21]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Effie's Hangups, F/M, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon, The Facts of Life in District 12, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 04:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19899718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobster/pseuds/Lobster
Summary: Fifty-two weeks, fifty-two prompts, fifty-two drabbles; this work is part of a series of Haymitch/Effie drabbles inspired by one-word prompts. This week's prompt: apology.Effie overreacts to a situation with the tributes.





	Apology

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long absence, guys! I went on vacation with my fiancé and ended up getting pretty sick for a couple of weeks. I haven't been good for much besides playing Mario Maker 2 (which, if you want to play any of my ridiculous number of courses, hmu for my Maker code in the comments!). However, here is a full length fic instead of a drabble to make up for it, I guess? I did hear about Hayffie week, though I wasn't feeling good enough to respond to Ellana's comment on _Mango_ just yet - but I will. I have some ideas even though I'm no longer active on tumblr!

_Lice_. The tributes had _lice_.

They had been scratching their heads the whole train ride until Effie couldn’t contain herself anymore and had corrected their poor manners at dinner. The boy had turned beet red and stammered out, “We can’t help it, there was an outbreak at the Community Home last week.”

“An outbreak? Of what?” Effie had asked.

“Lice, I assume,” Haymitch had drawled, swigging his whiskey.

Effie had paled, finding herself at a loss for words, then taken the next opportunity to excuse herself from the table, deciding to let Haymitch pass on the social niceties of the Capitol for once. Surely he could handle it this year.

_Lice_.

Effie had never had lice in her whole life, had never known anyone who had had them! What was she supposed to do with two tributes who had lice? Surely you weren’t supposed to go near them? Wasn’t that how you caught the nasty little things? Had she caught them already? She felt itchy.

She decided the best thing to do was take a shower. It would help her decompress and hopefully wash away any little bugs that had jumped off onto her. She undressed, putting her clothes and wig as far away from the rest of her things as possible. Hopefully the attendants on the train would know what to do with them. Then she got in the shower and selected the most relaxing setting she could find.

She only got out once all the hot water on the train had been used up. Still, she took a long time in the bathroom drying off and getting into her night clothes. When she came out into her compartment, she was surprised to see Haymitch.

“I thought you’d drowned,” he said.

“No, I just needed a relaxing shower,” she replied. 

“Upset about something?” he asked lightly.

Effie sensed a trap, but she decided to venture forward anyway. “I was just caught off guard,” she said. “I’ve never known anybody who’s had lice before!”

“I’ve had lice half a dozen times,” Haymitch said. “So yes, you have.”

Effie didn’t know what to say to that, but from the look on Haymitch’s face, she was not doing a very good job of keeping her feelings about half a dozen lice infestations secret.

“You got a problem with that, princess?” Haymitch asked.

“N-no,” she stammered. “It’s just…” She trailed off.

“Just what?”

_Just such a nightmare!_ “Just so terrible! I can’t believe people _live_ like that!”

“Well believe it, princess. At least we don’t go around turning up our noses at people for something they can’t help, that’s not hurting anybody in the slightest, and will be solved the minute they meet their prep teams.” With that he stormed out of the compartment, slamming the door behind him.

Effie stood in stunned silence. Was Haymitch right? Was she making a mountain out of a molehill? Were lice not that big of a deal? After all, the prep teams certainly _would_ take care of the issue first thing…

She decided to sleep on it, and see what she thought in the morning.

\---

When her alarm went off, the first thing she thought of was how appalled she was at herself. Her sleep had been full of dreams of Haymitch and all the tributes they’d ever had together, but they hadn’t been able to see her. She’d run in front of them, jumped up and down, screamed even, and they hadn’t even noticed. She’d cried, and nobody had seen. Finally she had tried apologizing, and suddenly they could all see her, and they all acted surprised to see her there. Now that she was awake, she could see that she needed to apologize to the real tributes (and probably Haymitch) too.

Once she was dressed and had made up the day’s schedule, she had to wake the tributes. Would they even want to listen to her after yesterday? There was only one way to find out. “Wake up, Myrtle! It’s going to be a big, big, big day!” she called cheerfully, knocking on the door to their girl’s compartment. A few moments later a curious head appeared.

“You’re talking to me?”

“Of course, silly! Why wouldn’t I?” Effie paused. “I’m sorry if I gave the impression I didn’t want to.”

The girl seemed surprised that a Capitol woman would be apologizing to her. “Oh. Well… thank you. It’s all right, I guess. Is breakfast ready?”

“It will be in a moment. I’m going to go wake Clay. And… apologize to him as well.”

“Oh. OK… well… Is breakfast in the same place dinner was?

“Yes. And then soon after that we’ll be in the Capitol. Haymitch is already at breakfast so you might want to take this opportunity to ask a few questions.”

“Thanks.” She disappeared back into her compartment, presumably to finish getting dressed.

That wasn’t so bad. Hopefully the boy would go over the same.

She knocked on his door and gave him the “big, big, big day!” speech, but there was no response. She sighed and opened his compartment and went in. He was passed out cold on his bed, snoring slightly, dead to the world. Waking him would be about as easy as waking Haymitch, probably, though hopefully not as dangerous.

She put her arm on his shoulder and shook him gently, calling his name sweetly. No response. She called a little louder. He kept snoring. She decided to fight a bit more meanly - she grabbed the silk blankets and yanked them off the bed. His snoring interrupted slightly, then continued. She tickled his bare foot - it was rough with callouses but clean from having been introduced to the shower last night. He snorted and pulled his foot away. Aha! She was getting somewhere! Against her better judgement, she decided to tickle his sides. He bolted awake, frantic.

“Who’s there? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Clay, I had to get you up somehow! It’s breakfast time, and then after that we’ll be in the Capitol,” Effie said, her arms now held against her chest in apologetic defense.

He blinked, remembering where he was, then groaned. “Right. Thanks, I guess.”

Effie hesitated. “Um, listen Clay. I didn’t really behave very respectfully towards you last night. I just wanted to apologize for that.”

He blinked. “It’s the crack of dawn, I’m going into the Hunger Games, and now one of their puppets is worried about disrespecting me?”

This was more like what she was expecting. But then again maybe Clay wasn’t a morning person. She decided to take the high road.

“I’m sorry about your situation. You don’t deserve my disrespect on top of all that.”

“Hmm. Thanks, I guess. What’s for breakfast?”

Effie let him know and then left as quickly as she could.

Out in the dining car, Haymitch and Myrtle were having a discussion about how to deal with the prep team, or more specifically, how the prep team would deal with her.

“Yeah, it’ll take like twenty minutes. I had the same problem,” he was saying. So that’s why he was so upset. Maybe his escort hadn’t treated him very well either? She definitely owed him an apology too. Not in front of the tributes though. It would have to wait until they were in the Capitol.

\--- 

A few hours later, the tributes had been bundled off to their prep teams (who, to Haymitch’s word, were not fazed by the situation in the slightest), and Effie and Haymitch were in a private car to the Training Center where they would be able to start unpacking their things and settle in until the official sponsor period opened that afternoon.

Haymitch was busy not talking to her, going through the vehicle’s small alcohol offerings, trying to decide which one suited him best. Effie let him deliberate for a few more moments, then cleared her throat. 

Haymitch continued to ignore her. She cleared her throat louder.

“Frog in your throat, princess?”

Effie had no idea what that meant but she decided to pretend it wasn’t insulting.

“No! I wanted to let you know I was sorry for how I acted toward the tributes!”

“Well, you were treating them like actual human beings this morning, so I figured you’d had some sort of change of heart.”

Honestly! Why did he have to make this so impossible?

“I just got to thinking last night about what you said--”

“ _You_? Listened to _me_? I don’t believe it,” he said.

“And I figured you were right,” she gritted out.

“Excuse me? Did _Effie Trinket_ just admit I, Haymitch Abernathy, was right about something? Pull over the car and find a paparazzi, this is an historic occasion!”

Effie was seething. This man had no idea of the proper way to accept an apology.

“Oh, don’t get your corset in a bunch, princess. I’m only kidding. I knew you’d come around if I said something.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. You’re a good person. You just have some weird ideas in your head. But who doesn’t?” Haymitch shrugged.

Effie had a feeling he was really saying, “who in the Capitol doesn’t,” but maybe he really was polite enough not to say that. She relaxed. 

“Well… I suppose that’s true.”

“Sure it is. Now, have you had a look at the list of potential sponsors yet?”

Things seemed to be back to normal between them. Effie pulled the list out of her bag, and glanced out of the car. Traffic was terrible. They would be stuck here for a while. They settled in with the list and began to talk.


End file.
